Thursday, 30 September 2010

In attempt to whore myself out diversify into fields other than the written word, I recently lent my vocal squawkings to the Picturehouses podcast, an unreliably irregular but often ROFLicious experience produced and presented by Brixton's Ritzy Cinema - specifically projecting gentleman and events programmer Sam Clements, and Simon Renshaw, whose exact purpose is yet to be determined.

Here's the most recent episode, in which I basically say out loud everything I've written in the last week, with some bonus stuff that I didn't write down because it wasn't good enough but thought I might be able to get away with verbally. Sam and Simon say some stuff too, but you can skip their bits if you like.

If you're reading this bit having decided that you can't be arsed listening to the podcast, maybe I can tempt you by telling you that in it I exclusively reveal the subject of tomorrow's BIG MOVIE PERSON INTERVIEW!!! Or you could just come back tomorrow when it'll be up in all its Paxmanesque glory.

Wednesday, 29 September 2010

In a pathetic attempt to conceal the fact that I've got nothing to say today, here's a bunch of new(ish) trailers to inject into your pupils. Unless you're a teacher.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1

If you shut your eyes for the second that Dobby's in it, it's not all that bad.

Morning Glory

The true story behind GMTV's replacement show Daybreak, starring Harrison Ford as Adrian Chiles, Diane Keaton as Christine Bleakley and Rachel McAdams in an amazing pair of underpants.

True Grit

I've tried and tried and tried but I am unable to summon the necessary enthusiasm that appears to be a pre-requisite of commenting on this trailer. I miss the old Coen brothers.

The Roommate

I'm looking forward to this because it reminds me of when I was at college and every single person was impossibly beautiful and thin and we spent all our time on the popular social networking site Frienderz.com.

Citizen Jane

I don't care if this is fake, it's still more

entertaining than the whole of Citizen Kane.

If it's any consolation I will be compensating for the laziness of this post on Friday with another CAPS LOCK EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW CAPS LOCK with a real, live, actual person who really, actually, works on films and stuff. He's a bit of a personal hero so it's taking me a while to edit out all the disgusting lickspittlery and sycophantic toadying, but I'm very excited about it and so should you be if you've got any sense.

Tuesday, 28 September 2010

A mere thirteen months after its US release, World's Greatest Dad hit UK cinemas last week, and still nobody had heard of it. This is almost certainly down to the World's Worst Poster Campaign, which posited the film as a typically zany Robin Williams family scmaltz-com, when it is in fact the kind of intelligent, thoughtful, occasionally uncomfortable but often hilarious comedy that Wes Anderson wishes he could make. Yeah, I said that.

For the first half-hour, World's Greatest Dad plays out like most difficult-teen / out-of-touch-parent comedies, with former Spy Kids spy kid Daryl Sabara giving a horrifically good performance as the World's Most Wretched, Horny and Permanently Sweaty Son Kyle.

But when the story takes an unexpected turn for the monumentally dark, everyone who thought they'd come to see Licence To Wed 2 will get up and go home in disgust, and good riddance to them.

From this point on the World's Hairiest-Handed Actor provides real heart and soul (you know, the qualities entirely absent from Wes Anderson's films) to a genuinely thought-provoking story, and for once gives us the kind of restrained display you might never have expected from a cross-dressing Scottish tits-on-fire nanny.

Director Bobcat Goldthwait should be congratulated for a) having the World's Greatest Name, b) going from insanest cadet in the Police Academy films to indie legend, and c) giving film students the world over ammo for their essay about motifs in film with the zombie references that litter the script.

Sadly it falls to me to point out the World's Most Insignificant Continuity Error in the trailer: Having just finished printing the manuscript for his novel Door To Door Android, Robin Williams apparently attaches the front page to another story, Darwin's Pool! WHAT A HILARIOUS GAFFE!

Monday, 27 September 2010

I was recently sent, out of the blue, a copy of a film called This Is War. Or at least it says This Is War on the disc and on the DVD menu; when you get into the film it turns out it's called Severe Clear. Presumably the person in charge of Branding Continuity was off sick that day.

It's a documentary in which US Marine First Lieutenant Mike Scotti films his time in Iraq during the early stages of military operations in 2003 with a camcorder, and it's sold as a true depiction of what it's like to be behind enemy lines.

In the first scene, Scotti is seen packing a bag. He puts on a gas mask and looms close to the camera, breathing heavily. I actually said out loud, to an empty room, "If he says 'Luke, I am your father' in a deep voice, I'm turning this off". Sure enough, he said "Luke, I am your father" in a deep voice. So I turned it off.

Sunday, 26 September 2010

There was a record number of entries for The Incredible Suit's competition to win a copy of the quite literally large and heavy book The Art Of Drew Struzan. Something tells me I should have got Titan Books to post it to the winner rather than fork out for the extortionate postage myself. You can be sure it's no "Large Letter" as well, this mother is a full-on "Packet".

The correct answer was, obviously, that this is my favourite Struzan poster:

...and, believe it or not, it doesn't actually feature in the book. What up with that?

Anyway, as it's a special occasion I thought I'd get a special guest to pick the winner, so I asked The A-Team star Liam Neeson to help. And guess what?

So thanks to Liam and congratulations (insert winner's name), I am literally on my way to the post office now. If I fall off my bike because the book is so heavy it's your fault.

Friday, 24 September 2010

Extraterrestrial (Extraterrestre for the linguistically pedantic among you) is a new film by Nacho Vigalondo, director of Timecrimes, The Incredible Suit's best film that was made in 2007 but not released in the UK till 2009. I'm quite excited about it.

Timecrimes (Los Cronocrímenes for the etc etc) was a cracking time-travel-mystery-thriller carnival of bonkers that proved what could be done with a great idea but not much money, so when Vigalondo announced his next film would be about an alien invasion, literally THE ENTIRE WORLD waited with bated breath to see what would happen.

And what's happened so far is two posters which appear to be marketing two completely different films. The found-footage / fake documentary version:

...and the sci-fi rom-com version:

I'm not sure which of those two versions I'm more excited about, although the Space Invaders poster is a genius visual summation of the synopsis - boy meets girl, falls in love, aliens invade.

Here are Vigalondo's own thoughts on the film, as detailed in his blog and translated by one of those reliable internet translatobots:

And who am I to argue with that?

Meanwhile, here's Vigalondo's 2003 short 7.35 In The Morning (it doesn't matter what its Spanish title is, stop going on about it), which is suitably daft and is as good a way as any to spend eight minutes of your life.

Thursday, 23 September 2010

Whenever a filmmaker compares their new movie to anything Alfred Hitchcock ever did, the temptation to stab them to death in the shower, drop them from the top of a tower or strangle them and serve afternoon tea on their coffin is almost overwhelming. The most recent perp was James Mangold, whose Knight And Day was (despite his claims) about as similar to North By Northwest as chalk and shit.

So when Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés repeatedly pushed the Hitchiness of his high-concept Claustrocore thriller Buried, I started sharpening the knives and fetching lengths of rope out of the garage. Then came the first poster and trailer, which were intriguing, then another poster and trailer, both inspired by Hitchcock collaborator Saul Bass, which were ace, and before I knew it I wanted to see Buried ASAFP. So I did.

Let's be clear about something: this film is 95 minutes of Ryan Rodney Reynolds in a box. That's it. Let's be clear about something else: this is the best film I've seen this year. From its amazing opening titles to its final shot, Buried is an astounding technical accomplishment and a terrific work of suspense cinema. So while Ryan is squirming in his grave, Alfred can officially stop turning in his.

At no point in this film do you get bored of being stuck in a box with Ryan Rodney Reynolds, but at the same time you're screaming to be let out. Cortés uses every trick in the Desperate Director's Handbook to keep us hooked, and he does it exactly how Hitch did: with skilful sound design, creative lighting, ingenious camerawork and inventive editing. It's a masterclass in old-school filmmaking.

There are other actors in Buried, though they're (mostly) relegated to voices on the other end of the phone, but it's Triple R who carries the film with a career-best performance that you can't imagine many other actors pulling off. If it was Day-Lewis or De Niro in there they'd be bellowing their lungs off until you prayed for the air to run out.

Like everything, it's not perfect - the score, while tremendous, sounds like the guy in the next coffin is watching Lost, and Robert Paterson, the actor who spends the most time on the blower with RRR, is so wooden he could have been cast as the coffin.

Nevertheless, Buried leaps to No.1 in The Incredible Suit's Top 5 of 2010, which I promise I'll publish as soon as Clash Of The Titans drops out of it and I won't get lynched. Meanwhile, here's the obligatory over-zealous warning from the IMDb Parents' Guide:

Wednesday, 22 September 2010

Winter's Bone is one of those arthouse flicks that would sit very comfortably in the middle of a film festival but seems to have gained a wide release thanks to positive word of mouth. It looks bleak yet beautiful, the scenery is homely yet unwelcoming, the whole atmosphere haunting yet hopeful and the acting restrained yet dramatic, especially in the case of its lead, Jennifer Lawrence.

Not much happens, but then it never does in these kinds of films. It's all about the mood. Which is fine if you like that kind of thing, but if you're a borderline narcoleptic like me it'll put you out quicker than chloroform.

Of course the big question is, where does Winter's Bone sit on the scale of 2010's bleakest bleakfests?

Tuesday, 21 September 2010

Having shamelessly attempted to get you to buy me a copy of The Art Of Drew Struzan in this post, I'm happy to say that you can put the money you've saved up towards something else because one plopped through my letterbox the other day, which is to say that a card saying "We failed to deliver a parcel ten times bigger than your letterbox" plopped through my letterbox and I had to go all the way to the depot to collect it but it was a nice day and it got me out of the house so it was all OK.

Anyone who's ever bemoaned the current state of movie poster shitness is legally required to get hold of this book as soon as possible and wallow in glorious, mostly '80s airbrushery. Not only does it include sketches and abandoned ideas for some of the most iconic posters, like, ever, but many of them I've never even seen before, and I thought I'd seen every piece of Back To The Future and Indiana Jones concept art in existence.

It's also a cracking read - Struzan reveals how all the men in his posters are - from the neck down - paintings of photographs of himself posing; he shows how Mary Steenburgen's place in the Back To The Future Part III poster was once occupied by a horse, and vents his frustration at being replaced by idiots with Macs, showing off the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets poster he was working on before he was unceremoniously dumped from the franchise. It makes you weep to think of what he could have done with the rest of the series.

So if that's got you dribbling gloopy saliva from your sloppy chops to the point where you'd do almost anything for a copy of this book, then I've got news of the greatest kind. Thanks to the lovely smashers at Titan Books, The Incredible Suit has one pristine copy of The Art Of Drew Struzan to give away to the winner of another...

To gain entry to the Arena, just answer this question:

Which of Drew Struzan's film posters

is The Incredible Suit's favourite?

All correct entrants will face a battle to the death, to be filmed in ultra-low definition 2D and broadcast on this very blog via the miracle of Your Tubes. Email your answer to me here before midnight on Friday and I'll announce the winner at the weekend.

I suppose I could point out that the answer can be found somewhere on The Incredible Suit, but that might make it too easy.

Monday, 20 September 2010

The Pope popped into London last week to say hi to the Queen and people and stuff, and while he was here he took time out to go and see Devil, the first film in the officially-christened (by me) "Claustrocore" movement, as detailed at tedious length in this post. This was particularly fortuitous for The Incredible Suit because a) the Pope is a big fan of the blog, and b) as an official representative of God he's probably best placed to comment on any cinematic interpretation of the actions of his boss's biggest business rival.

So I asked Mr The Pope if he'd tell me his thoughts on the film, he said he was down with that, and true to his word, this email arrived at the weekend:

Sunday, 19 September 2010

Saturday, 18 September 2010

Now obviously Alfred Hitchcock isn't renowned for his musical skillz as much as he is for his directing and eating skillz, but he did know how to pick a good tunesmith to score his films. Most often associated with Bernard Herrmann and some screeching violins, Hitch in fact worked with a cacophonous cavalcade of composers in his time, including John Williams and Maurice Jarre.

So here's a tiddly selection of some of the music from some of the bestest films wot ever bin dun, and as an aside I will happily point you towards this double CD which contains most of this music and more, and is very very good indeed. But for now, why not get caught up in an extraordinary chain of events following a simple misunderstanding which leads you into a cross-country chase, pursued by agents of good and evil, eventually shacking up with an icy blonde chick, at which point you can...

But who's the biggest star of this film? According to this trailer, posted on Yahoo Movies, it's Angie:

But according to a slightly differently cut trailer posted on Yahoo Movies UK, it's Depples:

Which apparently means that UK audiences are far more likely to see a film starring Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie than Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp. Maybe it's because Depp's channeling another British National Treasure for The Tourist:

Of course, a cursory glance at the credits reveals the real star of the film:

Although I've watched the trailer over and over again and I can't see a single shot of Dalters anywhere. Maybe he's voicing Angie's CGI hedgehog pal.

Thursday, 16 September 2010

When Joaquin Phoenix announced his retirement from acting two years ago in order to embark on a career as the world's hairiest rapper, LITERALLY THE ENTIRE WORLD was thrown into confusion. Is he really? He can't be serious. Why would he? Is it a hoax? Or isn't it? Or is it? Or isn't it? Ooh look, EastEnders is on.

As the non-mystery trundled on, Phoenix and his brother-in-law Casey Affleck conveniently filmed the entire process, the culmination of which is this mock-rock-cock-documentary, which pretty much answers the question of whether or not it was all one massive practical joke in every scene, and if you're still not sure there are some quite large clues in the credits.

Fortunately the question is largely irrelevant because I'm Still Here is an entertaining and often hilarious film that might actually have something to say about celebrity, pop culture, actors becoming musicians or the difficulties faced by anyone trying to change direction in life in a world that fears change. Alternatively it could just be a vehicle for the hitherto unknown comic talents of P Diddy.

It's a bit too long and the comedy is occasionally too broad for us to ever feel sorry for him, but the part of "Joaquin Phoenix" could be Joaquin Phoenix's best role yet.

In other news, there's been a massive oversight at the ever-reliably over-zealous IMDb Parents' Guide for I'm Still Here, which is currently inexplicably blank. So I suppose it falls to me to point out to any parents out there worried about what your kids might see in this film, that it contains:

Oh and of course there's the face-shitting bit. But that's just funny.

Wednesday, 15 September 2010

The BFI have squirted out this rather lovely trailer for one of The Incredible Suit's London Film Festival picks, The Great White Silence. You know, the one about the man who goes to the bottom of the planet only to find that (SPOILER ALERT) someone else got there first.

Anyway wrap your mince pies around this because it looks magnifulous:

It's this kind of restoration work that makes the BFI one of the best things in the world, like, ever, so if you're going to the LFF this year show them some love and see The Great White Silence. And if doom-laden documentaries from the 1920s aren't usually your thing...

The Parking Lot Movie

Also at the London Film Festival, probably the greatest film about people who work in car parks you'll see this year, unless they re-release Police Academy:

2001: Beyond The Infinite

If you're a level-headed, intelligent individual with impeccable taste and a firm grasp on what makes a truly amazing cinematic experience, you'll know that 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the fifteen greatest films ever made, and in fact when seen on the biggest screen possible is more like a religious experience than a movie.

So you may be pleased to hear that special effects titan Douglas Trumbull (whose filmography as Visual Effects Boffin is surprisingly short but includes 2001, Close Encounters, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Blade Runner) is in the process of creating a well spanky-looking documentary about the making of the film. Here's his peculiar trailer / announcement / test footage which breaks the news:

Despite the tiresome intercutting of Trumbull talking to HAL with clips from the film, and the potentially annoying gimmick of walking into stills and scenes shot over forty years ago, 2001: Beyond The Infinite is the kind of thing that starts my heart beating in the morning. Dear Doug, don't just stick this on the BluRay where it'll be ignored, get it out into cinemas. Really big, loud cinemas. Thanks.

Also I don't know what the 'Sausage Factory System' is but I'm very excited about it.

Tuesday, 14 September 2010

New comigazine CLiNT "hit the news stands" this month, boasting comic strips from Jonathan Ross and Frankie Boyle, as well as a side-splitting playground-humour title. Hee hee! From a distance it looks like - you know - that word! Maybe that's why it didn't get a mention on BBC News, although it should have done for this strip alone:

Yes, it came out weeks ago, and no, it's not a film, but I mention it because it's aiming itself at the movie geek audience with editor Mark Millar's Kick-Ass 2 strip, as well as the likes of articles about people who dub Cruise and DiCaprio for foreign markets and an interview with man of the moment (three years ago) McLovin'. It even got its own trailer, although zero effort was put into that:

The bits that aren't comics aren't up to much - items like "Top Five Weird Things Real People Have Shouted During Sex" and "Top Ten Hot TV Mums" hardly break new ground, and an entire page about a day in the life of a pot-smoker is as tedious and childish as it sounds.

CLiNT's big selling point is the Ross and Boyle material, so why there aren't interviews with them about their love of comics and how they came to write their own is a mystery. As is the lacklustre cover - Millar's editorial compares CLiNT to Eagle and 2000 AD, but have a look at their front pages:

2000 AD's first cover from 1977 might essentially look like a blue toilet roll, but it does feature the words "SPACE-AGE DINOSAURS!" and "STOP PRESS! GREAT BRITAIN INVADED!" Also, hello, FREE SPACE SPINNER!

The first issue of CLiNT gives us a man with a ginger beard, some dull fonts and, upsettingly, NO FREE SPACE SPINNER.

So what about the comicy bits? Well, Kick-Ass 2 is eight pages long and stops just as it gets going; Ross' vampires-vs-gangsters-vs-aliens-in-prohibition-era-New-York bloodbath Turf is entertaining but essentially derivative of all those genres, and Boyle's Rex Royd is baffling but promising. It's Millar's other offering Nemesis that proves the most readable and thrilling, and the opening scenes of massive carnage must already have 20th Century Fox wondering how they're going to afford to pull off Tony Scott's big-screen adaptation.

Given that Turf, Nemesis and (eventually) Kick-Ass 2 are all available separately, CLiNT comes across as little more than a sampler for those titles. Millar's offer to publish new talent is admirable, although judging by Issue One it'll be relegated to three pages at the back while the celebs get the lion's share of space.

So having compounded the problem by giving CLiNT more free publicity, I recommend Issue Two ditches all the content apart from Kick-Ass 2 and gives a few non-celebrity writers a chance to tell their stories.

Monday, 13 September 2010

Having spent the weekend poring over the programme for the American Express American Airlines Mofilm Windows 7 Renault Jameson Empire Lovefilm Vue Green & Black's London Film Festival (apols to the sponsors I didn't have space for), it's painfully apparent that this is a good year for intimate depictions of family life / the horrors of war / people struggling with their sexuality, not to mention five-and-a-half-hour biopics of terrorists. All well and good, but what else ya got?

Well, ignoring the obvious (Never Let Me Go, 127 Hours, Black Swan etc), here's just ten of the flicks I think I'll go and see if the elusive LFF Press Pass comes my way; if not I suppose I'll just have to pay, though that hardly seems right.

Archive Gala: The Great White Silence

Restored footage of one of history's most tragic wastes of time, Captain Scott's expedition to the South Pole. The kind of thing that makes you truly question yourself when you use the phrase "Brrr, I'm freezing".

Film On The Square: Submarine

Written and directed by The IT Crowd's Richard Ayoade, starring Paddy Considine in a mullet and featuring the words "desirable eczematous classmate" in the BFI's write-up. Who wouldn't want to see that?

Film On The Square: 13 Assassins

A retired samurai has to gather a team of hard-nuts to overthrow an evil warlord in 19th Century Japan. Exactly like The Expendables,

but (I'm guessing) 100% less shit.

New British Cinema: Edge

Character drama about a bunch of lost souls in a hotel located on the edge (geddit?) of a disintegrating clifftop. Features amazing wallpaper.

New British Cinema: Upside Down

Yes, it's a music documentary, but sadly no, it's not about the 1990s boy band who hit the heady heights of No. 11 in the UK charts with "Change Your Mind". It is instead about the rise of indie record label Creation, responsible for some of the songs that CHANGED YOUR LIFE. If you're me.

French Revolutions: In Your Hands

Nobody does taut, intense, claustrophobic, psychological thrillers like the French, and when it stars Britain's Most Famous Bi-lingual Actress Who Was In Four Weddings And A Funeral, who could say non?

The documentary that may go some way to explaining why Steve Guttenberg's character in Police Academy hated the customers in his car park so much. And if that's all it achieves, it's succeeded.

Treasures From The Archive:

Man With A Movie Camera

The film I was made to read the most about without actually seeing

as a student arrives at the LFF in all its 1920s Russian experimental glory.

If you've ever enjoyed a special effect of any kind, watching this

would appear to be the respectful thing to do before commenting on

the blue guys in Avatar.

Obviously there are a bajillion more films worth seeing this year, and it's entirely possible that some from this list will be complete cack, but when else are you going to get the chance to find out? Exactly. See you there.

Sunday, 12 September 2010

My friend Adrian and his friend Tim have been done made a movie as their entry in the 28 Days Later Film Challenge. Participants had, believe it or not, 28 days in which to make a 70 minute feature film having been given only a title to work from. This is their excuse for the otherwise unforgivable name The Invisible Atomic Monsters From Mars.

You can take it from me that it's good, it's got gallons of fake blood and more geeky movie references than a geeky convention of geeks geeking geekily till their geekicles drop off.

Adrian and Tim would very much like someone to give them a bundle of cash to make a longer, fuller version (presumably with a better name), so if anybody out there would like to see the whole thing or help them out, you can contact them through their rather good website Zombies Alive, or email them here.

Saturday, 11 September 2010

If Bond music in the '60s was all about the sleaze, in the '70s it was all about the cheese. From John Barry's Vegas of Diamonds Are Forever, through George Martin's funkalicious blaxploitation-esque wah-wah of Live And Let Die, to Marvin Hamlisch's whatever-the-hell-you-describe-it-as version of the Bond theme for The Spy Who Loved Me, well-past-its-sell-by cheddar runs through these scores like massively-collared safari suits run through Roger Moore's wardrobe.

So get out the cream crackers, raise a solitary eyebrow to the heavens and suck your cheeks in as you kiss a series of ladies in a horrifically unwatchable fashion, because it's time to...

Thursday, 9 September 2010

Now that the entire cosmos is thoroughly sick to the pointy back teeth of vampires in movies thanks to a pasty, sparkling glut of them over the past couple of years (Let The Right One In being the only acceptable example), it's high time we had a new trend to exhaust very quickly.

And so it falls to the brand new "stuck somewhere claustrophobic for most of the film" sub-genre (which I hereby christen Claustrocore) to provide all the confined-space ROFLs we could ask for, so that in six months' time we'll all be fully aware that the real demons aren't outside... THEY'RE WITHIN OUR VERY SELVES, ZOMG!

September 17 2010: Devil

The bad news:

Five strangers are trapped in a lift. One of them may or may not be

The Prince Of Darkness (The Devil, not Ozzy Osbourne).

The really bad news:

Story by M Night Shyamalan + no preview screenings = satanic turkey.

September 29 2010: Buried

The bad news:

One man is trapped in a coffin.

The really bad news:

All he has with him are a lighter, a mobile phone and a DVD of Devil.

January 7 2011: 127 Hours

The bad news:

One man is trapped in a canyon with a big rock slowly crushing his hand.

The really bad news:

It's his "alone-time" hand.

February 4 2011: James Cameron Presents Sanctum

The bad news:

Fifteen divers are trapped in an underwater cave.

The really bad news:

James Cameron wants them to stay there a bit longer so he

can release a special edition in six months' time.

Some time in 2012: Life Of Pi

The bad news:

A teenager is trapped on a boat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan

and a tiger called Richard Parker (coincidentally my old history teacher).

The really bad news:

By the time it gets made it'll have missed the "Boo Hoo I'm Trapped" boat
and future movie blogs will be flaming it for not being part of the new

"Boo Hoo I've Been Turned Into Cheese" subgenre.

Sooner than you think:

It's Chile Down Here: The Inevitable True Story

The bad news:

33 poor bastards are trapped in a mine in the middle
of the Atacama desert for four months.